Talking points

Clarence Thomas: A battle revisited

From the magazine

If anyone wondered whether Justice Clarence Thomas was still bitter, said Edward Lazarus in the Los Angeles Times, wonder no more. Thomas this week released his autobiography, My Grandfather’s Son, chronicling his “amazing journey from crushing poverty” in rural Georgia to the pinnacle of power. But this is not merely a stirring life story. It’s a full-throated counterattack by a sitting Supreme Court justice on the liberal “mob” that opposed his nomination 15 years ago. Thomas, now 59, revisits the sexual harassment charges a former subordinate, Anita Hill, made during his confirmation hearings, portraying her as an unstable liar. Liberal Democrats and the press tried to destroy him, he says, because as a fiercely independent conservative, he did not fit their stereotype of a black man. “The mob I now faced carried no ropes or guns,” Thomas writes. “Its weapons were smooth-tongue lies spoken into microphones … But it was a mob all the same, and its purpose—to keep the black man in his place—was unchanged.”

Subscribe to The Week

Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

SUBSCRIBE & SAVE
https://cdn.mos.cms.futurecdn.net/flexiimages/jacafc5zvs1692883516.jpg

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

Sign up
To continue reading this article...
Continue reading this article and get limited website access each month.
Get unlimited website access, exclusive newsletters plus much more.
Cancel or pause at any time.
Already a subscriber to The Week?
Not sure which email you used for your subscription? Contact us